


the kind of heartbreak time could never mend

by reas_of_sunshine



Series: a love most a-fowl [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: (probably), (sort of?), Bittersweet, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon Compliant, Confessions, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Two-Shot, idk you tell me, is this basically an angsty romcom but with ducks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reas_of_sunshine/pseuds/reas_of_sunshine
Summary: It's been six months since Gandra moved to New Stork City. And it's... fine. Even if she isn't. Even if things won't be fine tonight, when her past doesn't come back to haunt her, but rather, give her an unlikely visit.
Relationships: Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera/Gandra Dee
Series: a love most a-fowl [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688326
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	the kind of heartbreak time could never mend

**Author's Note:**

> i told y'all a sequel was in the works for this  
> part two will be posted eventually  
> when i write it  
> idk  
> just know i won't leave y'all hanging because this was in my head for months
> 
> (psst if you haven't read my first fendra fic go do that so you understand what's going on: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025067 )

Gandra Chidiya was no punk rock scientist. 

Well, scratch that. Yes, she was. She had been. In what felt like a past life.

Gandra Dee was the top secret agent, working for what was maybe a terrorist organization. She didn’t dwell on that too much. Of course, she wasn’t dwelling on much now — with her face in a plate of greasy, cheesy fries and her mind clouded by what was her fifth beer. This was how she dealt with her rough days.

She had been having a lot of rough days recently.

New Stork was nothing like Calisota. Sure, they were both bustling cities with plenty of culture and attractions and entertainment.

But New Stork felt cold. Lonely.

Or maybe she just felt that way. She knew she should have brought a jacket. It was surprisingly chilly for springtime; and she had about a five block walk back to her apartment. Her watch lit up with a text — Bradley letting her know about another stupid meeting this week, meetings were the majority of what they did. Sometimes this felt like an office job, not an occupation out of action packed movies.

She swiped it away and caught eye of the time.

Almost midnight. It was her time to split like a storybook princess and get out before things got wild. This bar was pretty notorious for it’s one am throwdowns.

Gandra awkwardly stumbled off the bar stool and grabbed her beer bottle, heading for the door—and flipping off the few people who hollered at her if she needed someone to walk her home. The ones that booed in response were clearly only after one thing. She chuckled in response to the jeers, sipping her drink as she left the bar and stepped into the misty night that made her shiver.

Soft rain tickled her cheeks and she frowned.

Cold _and_ rain.

Just her luck.

Grumbling curses to herself, she slid her phone out of her pocket and swiped open a rideshare app, taking the first ride she saw — thankfully, only two blocks away and a rate that wouldn’t make her considering walking in this crap.

She sipped the last few dregs of her beer and dropped the bottle in the trashcan by the flickering stoplight. 

Which may have been more of a faulty spotlight.

“Look at me, I’m Gandra Dee,” she grumbled to herself. “Full of guilt, can’t you see,”

She was all sorts of drunk. Angry. Ridiculous. Flirty. Emotional. Depended on how she started out. She had a feeling tonight, she might end up all four at once. 

It had been a rough week. A rough month.

A rough past few months, actually.

The car rolled up with the signature bright purple Flyght logo stuck to the windshield and she stumbled into the backseat. “215 Beakman Street,” she requested, sinking into the fake leather like it was a luxurious bed.

The driver didn’t respond, just started rolling back onto their route.

Gandra hadn’t even noticed that this rideshare really was a rideshare until her fellow passenger spoke up.

“You cut your hair,” is what he said.

Is the first thing her ex boyfriend, that she hadn’t seen in half a year, said to her.

She reached for the door handle, considering that the car was going slow enough for her to roll out. But her head was already spinning from the booze. Or maybe the fact that _her ex boyfriend whom she hadn’t seen in six months_ was here, halfway across the country.

How and why?

“Yeah,” Gandra’s mouth was dry. She needed a drink, and not an alcohol one. 

She did indeed cut her hair; trading the sporty bob for an edgy undercut. New life, new hairstyle, right?

Wrong.

“You cut your hair and moved to New Stork,” Fenton said, his voice almost trembling. “And didn’t tell me,”

“Not in that order,” was her drunken, impulsive reply. “But, uh, yeah,” Gandra let go of the door handle and felt small. Weak. Dizzy. And this wasn’t because of the drinking. Like she said under the lamp-post, she was full of guilt.

She ran into her ex boyfriend, who she hadn’t seen in six months, on what would have been their one year anniversary.

The universe was sending her a big ole, well-deserved _fuck you._

“What are you doing in New Stork?” she said, her voice almost inaudible.

“Oh,” Fenton twirled his tie a bit. He swapped lavender for salmon. They both changed a little bit. “Mr. McDuck sent all of us to a science convention for business relations. I left early—it was too stuffy,”

Gandra almost smirked. “Too many stuck up snobs? And elitist assholes who want to help the environment but then build a hybrid car that does more harm than good?” she teased. For a moment, it felt like old times. For a moment, she could pretend she didn’t ditch him and break his heart.

He let out a soft huff and shook his head. “Yes, Elon Muskrat was there,”

“Gross,”

“Gyro nearly got into a fistfight with him,”

Gandra actually laughed. “I would have _loved_ to see ole Gearloser try to fight someone,”

Fenton almost chuckled right along with her, but instead, he stared down and fiddled with a fraying string on the car seat. “It was pretty funny,” he mused. He gulped, clearly trying to say something, when the car pulled to a quick stop.

It was quiet, except for the car idling and the radio softly playing heavy rap music.

“This is my stop,” Gandra said awkwardly.

She pulled the door handle, and it clicked open, but she didn’t move. She sat there, for a moment. Not even contemplating. Rather, she gave him a quiet summon. If she could, a telepathic request. Maybe she conveyed it with her slumped shoulders and sad eyes, her stillness, or her uncertainty.

But Fenton cleared his throat and finally spoke, “Yeah. Mine too,”

His voice was soft, but not tender — not like when he would ask her how her day went, or what she wanted to do on date night.

Or when he said he loved her.

Gandra opened the door and stumbled into the drizzling night, with Fenton right behind her.

This was a fever dream. How much did she drink? How was this happening? 

How could he be living on the other side of the country and still run into her? How did her plan fail?

...maybe she didn’t want to go through with this plan, anyway. New Stork was _awful,_ and the pizza wasn’t even as good as the locals said.

She stood there on the sidewalk as their ride drove off—and Fenton was beside her, hands in his pockets.

“So,” He almost whistled the word. Noticed she was shivering in her tank top and oversized jeans and shrugged off his blazer to drape around her shoulders. “Uh, what made you move to New Stork? The job opportunities? The tech industry is definitely booming here,”

Gandra opened her mouth to respond. 

And instead leaned over and hurled all over herself and Fenton’s expensive-looking suit jacket.

Honestly? That was the best description she could give of the mess she called her life now. Of the job that deceived her. She knew that this was not the alcohol taking the effect; she hadn’t even had that much, anyway. Just enough to forget for a moment, not forever.

She could never forget Fenton.

Not even if she wanted to.

And how could she want to forget him? She ditched him and he was still ushering her into the apartment building, asking for her apartment number, looking around for the elevator.

He wasn’t even mad about puke on his suit.

What made her leave this saint?

Threats. Fear. Cowardice. 

This was why she had so many rough nights. Had so many rough days and weeks and months.

The elevator played some awful, earworm music as they went up to the fifth floor. 

Fenton’s arm gently, hesitantly around Gandra’s waist to keep her stable, but he avoided eye contact. He was still a sweetheart, but it was nice to see he wasn’t oblivious anymore.

He looked older, even though it had only been half a year.

She just looked like hell. There was a difference.

The ding indicated their stop and Gandra shuffled away from him. She could walk on her own. She purposefully stayed a step or two ahead of him, trying to make it look like she had it together. She was by herself, living in big, bad New Stork. She had a fancy apartment. She was fine.

Even if she wasn’t. 

She fumbled with the keys for a minute, trying to remember which one actually let her in. 

When the door clicked is when Fenton spoke up. “Do you want me to come in?”

Gandra just stared at him like he asked if the sky was blue. “Yes?” she said, almost confused.

“I just—”

“We haven’t seen each other in six months and what? I’m just going to let you go?” She paused and squeezed her keys in her hand. “If you want to, you can. But I kinda wanted to talk,” Well, change into some clean clothes and get some water in her system first.

And then talk.

Fenton stammered a bit, standing in the hallway with his hands in his pockets.

“Sure. It’d be nice to talk,”

Gandra pushed the door open a little more before walking in and kicking her boots off, letting him follow her in. She didn’t have an apartment to keep nice for anyone now, so she wasn’t too embarrassed by the state of things.

Sort of hard to top getting sick all over her ex boyfriend’s clothes, anyway.

“I’ll, uh, get your thing dry cleaned,” she muttered. “Lemme change. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge if you want,”

Everything was the exact opposite of before. She kept tabs on things because she wanted to before. 

Now, she had no motivation to. For herself? Gandra had been through it all. She didn’t need things to be tidy and stocked, she would survive. If she had someone—that was different. Someone to motivate and care for… she had that. She was always painfully reminded of it when she woke up to the bed feeling too big, and the kitchen being empty, and the coffee machine not being used because she never got around to tinkering with the timer to be less annoying.

Fenton nodded and awkwardly moved aside some laundry so he could sit on the couch.

Gandra had no care for decency, or was far too casual about well, Fenton was with her for six months, he had seen it all.

She grabbed a new shirt in the pile and immediately went to take off the one she was wearing. She almost laughed when he turned his head.

But now this one, Gandra would blame on her inebriation. Not her sentiment. Not her heart screaming, beating, pounding in her chest. Not how cute he was. Not fair that it had been six months and she missed him this much.

“Hey—whoa! No!” Fenton firmly gripped her shoulder just as she leaned in, clearly going in for a kiss, clearly not wearing a shirt. “Gandra, you’re drunk,”

“You _know_ this isn’t drunk me,” she retorted.

Fenton frowned, yet he wasn’t quite upset. 

When he spoke, he revealed his true emotion: disappointment. “I thought I knew a lot of things about you,”

Gandra went still. Her eyes narrowed and her grip on the clean shirt turned into a fist. “Okay. Fair game,” she muttered, slipping the clothing on and smoothing it down. She felt stupid. And hurt, even if he was right. “I _did_ want to talk, though. Not—you know. Be an idiot, for lack of better words,”

Fenton refused to look at her now.

“What do you want to talk about,” He didn’t quite ask it. His voice was almost monotone.

Gandra is aware she didn’t think this one through. She vaguely gestured, which was apparently enough of a reply.

“Do you want to talk about how you stopped talking to me out of nowhere?” Fenton said. “Or how I went to your apartment to find nothing there? Or when I called you, it said your number was disconnected?”

Through each of these questions, his tone didn’t rise into anger. It stayed in the same sad, confused tone.

She probably could have taken it better if he was yelling at her and getting mad.

His chin actually wobbled as he finished what he had to say; “Gandra, if you wanted to break up with me, you could have just said it. If I scared you off with being too forward or … I don’t know. You didn’t have to waste my time—and maybe you thought what you did would hurt less. But it didn’t. It hurt a lot more,”

And of course, Gandra should have chosen her words more carefully.

Key words being should have.

“I didn’t want to break up with you. I had to,”

Fenton furrowed his brow and almost leaned back into the couch. Especially when he noticed Gandra’s expression turn into something resembling shock. 

If only he could have seen her heart drop into her stomach.

She bit her lip. She kicked the hardwood floor. She noticed she was more reckless with her work documents now that she lived alone; a bright crimson folder was beneath that same pile of laundry, the ebony logo almost glaring at her.

Last week’s assignment. Exposed the mayor’s underground dealings.

Made the news, actually. She got a nice bonus for that.

She felt sick. “Seriously, Suit, get comfortable. You’re gonna be stuck here for the rest of the night,”

Fenton blinked.

And then said the most unlikely thing in the world. The last thing she thought she would hear from him, especially after all that had happened.

“Okay, Gandra. I trust you,”

For the first time since she had met him, she was going to be one hundred percent honest.

She exhaled heavily enough to quite literally feel the weight come off her shoulders. “You really shouldn’t,”

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is made possible by comments like you!  
> ~reagan :)


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